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NJAFP Approves Resolution For RUC Withdrawal

As I previously blogged, the annual meeting of the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians is going on this weekend in Atlantic City. Start watching at minute 43 in the video above for the debate in discussion of the resolution about encouraging the AAFP to withdraw from the RUC. This debate may be a little preview of the discussion that will take place at the American Academy of Family Physicians Congress of Delegates meeting in September in Orlando. Also included at the beginning of the video above are the remarks of the incoming president of the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians. 

Live From Atlantic City

I invite you to join me this weekend at the New Jersey Academy of Famliy Physicians Summer Celebration and annual meeting which will be taking place in Atlantic City beginning today. The twitter hashtag of #NJAFP11 will be used during the meeting. You can also follow their twitter stream @NJAFPMeetings.

In addition to usual social media platforms, this meeting is unique in that for the past 2 years, they have taken the extra step of broadcasting parts of the meeting - live on the internet via ustream. Check out NJFamilyDoc.Org for all the information about the meeting, including the broadcast of live sessions.

Finally, I invite you to check out my presentation on Social Media and Family Medicine which will take place live on the internet on Saturday, June 18, 2011 at around 11am Eastern Daylight Time. I'll be co-presenting with Ray Saputelli who is the Executive Vice President of the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians.

Saturday's presentation about Social Media and Family Medicine will be similar to the one that was done in New Orleans at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine meeting last month. Also check out my video post promo above. See you Live From Atlantic City!

Blogiversary on FamMedRocks Podcast 12

Hope you can join me for the latest installment of the Family Medicine Rocks podcast which will be in Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 9pm Eastern Time on BlogTalkRadio. June celebrates two important things. First this the birthday of being a blogger the "Doctor Anonymous" blog was born five years ago this month. Secondly, this month is the birthday of me - YAY!

As outlined in the video above, one of the main topics will be the idea of "Social Media success." How do you define this for yourself? How do you define this for other people? I get this question A LOT, and it's pretty difficult for me to answer. But, I'll try to do that in the course of the show.

I'll also be talking about the passing of a friend of family medicine last week. I had a little blog rant on it yesterday. Depending on what happens before the show starts, I may continue with the rant. Finally, I'll be lecturing in Atlantic City this coming weekend at the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians annual meeting. The topic? Of course, family medicine and social media.

So, I hope you can join me for the recording of the live podcast. Even if you cannot, you can always download the archived podcast later and listen at your leisure. Hope to see you for the show!

Passing of Family Medicine Friend & Our Silence

On twitter this morning at around 9am eastern time, I was disheartened by the tweet by @dockj at the Family Medicine Program Directors Workshop: "Stunning gasps at announcement of sudden passing of Dr Barbara Starfield." I hadn't heard anything about this either. So, I did a quick search to find a statement from Dr. Rich Roberts from June 12th - a portion of which stated the following:

The news of the sudden death of Professor Barbara Starfield, apparently due to a coronary event while swimming at her California home on Friday, 10 June 2011, came as a shock. Her passing is an irreplaceable loss for those of us in the global community who care deeply about health care and equity. 

I never met Dr. Starfield, but it was always a professional goal of mine to try to run into her at one of these Family Medicine meetings to try to gain some wisdom from her. I was able to find the video above of her speaking and accepting a lifetime achievement award. She seemed like an amazing woman and undoubtedly a friend and advocate of Family Medicine and primary care.

Now, those of you from twitter who were baited by my tagline "Why the Family Medicine community should be ashamed of itself." What do I mean by that? Well, it was only through social media - specifically twitter - where I learned of this news. Throughout the morning and early afternoon, various google searches revealed short blurbs from Johns Hopkins, Health Equity, Medical Humanities blog, and the Arizona Academy of Family Physicians.

Then, at approximately 5pm eastern time today, the first substantive article was released by the Health Affairs blog. This is a very well written article and I recommend people check it out. In addition, they are making available free access until June 28, the articles she authored and co-authored.

Health Affairs extends its deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Dr. Starfield. To help honor Dr. Starfield’s career, Health Affairs is providing free access until June 28 to the full texts of the articles she has authored and coauthored in the journal...

But, for the entire day, I'm looking for an extensive article from one of the major Family Medicine organization - like the American Academy of Family Physicians or Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (she was beloved in the academic and research world, right?). Even scanning the major Family Medicine blogs - nothing. I mean people are more than happy to blog about legislative issues like leaving the RUC, or health care reform, or partnering with companies like Coca-Cola. But to be silent on the passing of one of the friends of Family Medicine? That really bothers me.

I'll be ranting more about this on my podcast on Tuesday night. But, I'm really hoping by then that the Family Medicine community and its social media supporters - I hope that they recognize, pay tribute, or at least even mention, the passing of Dr. Starfield who gave this specialty a voice. Hopefully we will not forget her with our silence....

Drug Interactions

When people talk about prescription medications, everyone is familiar with the concept of side effects from medication. But, did you know that there are things in your diet that may interfere with your prescription medication?

In addition, your prescription medication may interfere with over the counter medications. In the video above, there are two interviews recorded on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 on local TV news. If you find the information above helpful, I invite you to check out other TV interviews on medical/health issues at MikeSevilla.TV

Ohio Hospital Assoc on Social Media

The annual meeting of the Ohio Hospital Association is coming up next week in Columbus. I was alerted on the video promo above from their twitter feed and from their youtube channel. Now, this is not their first venture into social media.

However, with today's first Ohio live tweeting of surgery at Ohio State University Medical Center and previous discussion of the Ohio State Medical Association embracing social media, I really feel the major medical organizations of this state taking some major steps this year to show the importance of social media at the organizational level.

Something that I hope will happen is that important groups like patients and legislators take notice of this - particularly with the upcoming presidential election cycle. We know how people like politicians, entertainers, the media, and others have used social media. The medical community in Ohio needs more experience in this area and the steps that have been taken in the past few months are very encouraging...

Too Many Med Tweetchats?


Is it me or has the number of medically related twitter chats just exploded in the past 4-6 weeks or so? In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the proper and improper use of the twitter hash tag. I mean if more than 50% of the tweet are hash tags, then I gotta problem with it.

Twitter by it's very nature is whiny. I mean, one of twitter's first functions back in the day (in my opinion) and one of the first uses of twitter for the newer user is a place to vent. And, people complain, whine, vent about a great variety of stuff. But, not about the number of tweet chats that have been popping up recently?

Maybe I'm crazy, but will twitter ever get to the point when there are too many chats? Probably not. However, something that I have seen in the past few weeks is the selection of what I call the "golden" time of 9pm Eastern Time.

There is probably some solid data out there somewhere, but it seems like 9pET is the most common time for chats to happen (at least if a great number of the people participating are in the Eastern Time zone). And trying to navigate two or three chats going on at the same time is very interesting. I know when I started my podcast (back in the day LOL), I chose to go at 9pET as well because that time seemed to capture the most people for a live podcast.

Eventually, someone, who is very creative and more devoted than me at this stuff, is just going to take the time to accumulate all the medically related twitter chats out there an put it on one website. I mean, that is something that would be really interesting to check out.

Now, do I think that there are too many chats right now? No. However, if new chats keep popping up at the rate they are now, I do predict some kind of backlash where some med social media pundit will declare twitter chats as no longer productive because we will be too saturated by them. Am I wrong? I know people will let me know.... :)

Ohio State Broadcasts Live Knee Surgery

 

In my twitter stream this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see my friend Ryan Squire, otherwise known as @OSUSquire on twitter, talking about a live knee surgery taking place at Ohio State University Medical Center. He even tweeted out that on of their physicians was going to try to answer some questions via twitter using the hastag #osumcmako. Great job Ohio State!

Now, certainly, this is not the first live streamed surgery ever, but it's great seeing more and more hospitals utilizing social media for live broadcasts like this. (for example, according to their twitter stream, this was the first live tweeting of a surgery in the state of Ohio)

Above, is the ustream live link (fyi, there is a pre-roll ad before you can see the actual live stream). They also put the live video on their facebook page. Hopefully, they will save their broadcast to be reviewed later by those who were not able to catch it live. Kudos OSU!

Addendum: Here is another story about this from MedCity News.

AAFP Embraces Social Media

 

Physician organizations, like physicians in general, have been slow to see the value of social media. Organizations like the American Academy of Family Physicians have been trying out the different social media platforms over the past few months. About a year ago, I remember being at an AAFP meeting and only being one of a few physicians utilizing twitter during a meeting.

Last month, during a major AAFP meeting, I saw a tipping point reached with many physicians utilizing social media - including members of the AAFP Board of Directors. I wrote about this in a post entitled, "Why Family Medicine Needs Social Media." A lot of people read this post. I was pleasantly surprised by this. I was wondering what was going to happen next.

Then, a few weeks ago, I saw a tweet from AAFP stating that the organization was seeking a Social Media Manager. I applaud the organization for taking this step. As the organization starts to utilize the different social media platforms, I hope that AAFP will take the next step to educate its members on its benefits. As physicians gain more knowledge about social media, hopefully, this will empower them to use social media more.